I went shopping today to get everything I think I will need to put together a recirculating DWC system. I bought a 18 gal. rubbermaid type of reservoir(plan on having 3 five gal. buckets), with 2 drains with shutoff valves, one to go to the buckets and one so I can drain it easy into my tub. I got 3/4" black hose to run from the res. to the buckets and fittings to tie them all together. I also got a submersiable water pump, and I have a question: Do I just set this in the bottom of my bucket with plants growing or do I need to have it in its own bucket so roots wont get tangeled up in it and cause problems? I couldnt find any air pumps today so tomorrow I plan on going and finding a few. Hopefully I will have this set up in a few days so I can start some test runs with it and get the kinks worked out. And I have 1 more question, I have mirrors on 2 of the walls around the tub that take up the whole wall, I dont need to worry about putting any thing like panda film over them do I? I was thinking of hanging panda film or something similar up on the other 2 sides to maxamize my light. Thanks for your input!